Insecurity
by ce sont les petits choses
Summary: "Lucy, when are you going to actually believe me when I say that you are beautiful?"


A/N: This is a story I've written for a challenge over at the Next Generation Fanatics Forum, with the prompts _insecure, lonely heart, chess, _and _float_, as well as lyrics from the song _Hey You_ by Miranda Cosgrove. It's not exactly my favourite story (I wrote it all in one sitting), but I hope you like it, and please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

* * *

_it's your turn to see the beauty in yourself _

_just like you tell everyone else _

_you're the one who fixes me when I'm down_

* * *

Of all the things Lucy Weasley could be described as, it's never beautiful. She's too quiet. She's too short. Her hair is too boring. Her fingers are too stubby. She spaces out too much. Her eyes are too small and her laugh is too loud. Worst of all, her teeth are crooked and her smile makes her look slightly deranged.

She stands in front of the mirror and lists all the things that she finds wrong with herself almost every single day. It takes almost half an hour each morning for her to build up enough courage to walk to the Great Hall for breakfast, because every time she walks down the hall, all she can think about is the fact that everyone is staring at her; staring at the Weasley who managed to get brown hair instead red and who is not unbelievably good-looking like the rest of her cousins. She's never had a boyfriend, and she's sure that no one has ever looked at her and thought, "Wow, she's amazing."

Of all the things that Lucy Weasley could be described as, the only one that fits the most is insecure.

It's the only thing she feels as she's sitting in the Hufflepuff common room with one Lorcan Scamander playing wizard's chess. It's like everyone who walks in is staring at the Weasley outcast who is losing by a landslide at wizard's chess. Or they could be staring at The Lorcan Scamander. According to most groups of girls in the castle, Lorcan Scamander is the Most Attractive Guy in Hogwarts (those girls sure did have great vocabularies). Next on the list are her cousins James, Albus, and Louis. She finds it odd that Lysander isn't on the list, seeing as him and Lorcan are twins, and they look pretty much the same. Lucy guesses it's because Lorcan is "mysterious" as the girls would say (she reckons it's one of the biggest words they know), because even though he could easily be the most popular boy in school, he has never had a girlfriend before.

"Ha, checkmate, Luce!" Lorcan yelled, derailing Lucy's train of thought.

"Huh? Oh. Cool."

"What's wrong, sweet cheeks?" she used to hate it when he called her that, but by now, she's gotten used to it. He'd given her that nickname in their fourth year because a 10-year-old at Lily's birthday had hit on her by calling her sweet cheeks.

"Lor, why have you never gone out with anyone?" she finally asked. He raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, you've got dozens of girls following you every day, and they're all beautiful and most of them are smart. Why do you always hang out with me when you could be with one of them?" it took most of her courage to say it out loud, but she was glad she did – it'd been haunting her thoughts for quite some time now.

"Lucy," he started, "when are you going to actually believe me when I say that _you are beautiful_?" Indeed, she'd heard it before, but she refuses to believe him. _He's a gentleman,_ she'd think to herself each time. _He says that because he's a good friend. _(Her best friend, actually.) They'd known each other since they were in diapers; of course he'd try to reassure her. It didn't mean anything. She was about to say just that, when one of the girls yelled his name from across the common room.

"Lorcy! Oh Lorcy, I'm so glad to see you here! I looked all around the school for you, who would've thought you'd be in the Hufflepuff common room of all places?" It was Heather Zabini, possibly the most annoying girl in the entire castle, in Lucy's opinion. But of course, she was also one of the prettiest girls in her year as well.

"Would you lower your volume, Heather? It's disturbing everyone in the common room. How did you even get in here anyway? You usually don't leave the dungeons." Lorcan replied. "Also, please refrain from calling me Lorcy." Lucy grimaced at the horrible nickname she'd given him. Much worse than "sweet cheeks."

"You're a Ravenclaw, I thought you'd be smarter than to hang out with _Hufflepuffs_, of all people." She said the word with disgust, as if just breathing the same air as Hufflepuffs would make her combust and fall to the ground. Lucy wouldn't mind, actually.

"What do you mean by that?" Lucy spoke up. She never understood why people hated them so much, purely because of what colour tie they wore.

"I mean, that pathetic people like _you_ should stay away from people like _us_. If you're trying to make our popularity and the prettiness rub off on you, you're wrong. You could never be considered pretty, with your ugly glasses and ugly hair and ugly clothes." Heather spat every word at Lucy as if she was doing Lucy a favour just by acknowledging her existence, much less talking to her. "I'm just saying hun, no guy is ever going to even glance at you when you look like _this_."

Lucy didn't know what to say. Heather had just confirmed all of Lucy's insecurities in less time than it took to say "prejudice". So she did what she knew to do best: she ran away from the spotlight that was now shining bright on her as everyone waited for her reaction. She ran outside to a little clearing beside the lake that she had found in her second year when exams were too much for her to handle. Lucy leaned against a nearby tree and replayed what just happened over and over again in her head. It could have been 3 minutes, or 10 minutes, or even 10 hours before Lorcan's blonde head was poking through the bushes that lead to the clearing.

"Jeez Luce, couldn't you have found a more accessible hiding place?" he complained.

"It wouldn't be much of one if it was easy to find, would it?" she retorted.

"Touché." He walks over to where Lucy was and sits down beside her. "You okay, sweet cheeks?"

"I'm great."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then."

They sit side by side for a while just staring at the lake before Lorcan speaks again.

"It's because I'm waiting for that one person," he says.

"What?"

"That question you asked earlier. About why I've never had any girlfriends before? It's because I only want to be with one person, but I'm not sure if that one person likes me the way I like her."

"You know, Grandmum has a name for people like you." Lucy replies.

"Oh really? What is it?"

"A lonely heart. You're an outgoing person with lots of friends, but inside, you've got a lonely heart."

"I prefer to think of it as a faithful, or dedicated heart. It sounds much more romantic that way." Lucy bites back a laugh, because the thing about Lucy was that she doesn't giggle. She either laughs, or she doesn't. And when she does laugh, it's hearty and it's uncontrollable, and it's _loud_. And Lucy doesn't do loud; it attracts too much attention.

She looks over at the boy sitting next to her, and her breath hitches, because no matter how many times she looks at him – really look at him – she still can't believe that perfect Lorcan Scamander is her best friend and hasn't left her alone, ever. Him, with his blonde hair so light that it's almost brighter than the moonlight illuminating his delicate features. His eyes are just the perfect shade of blue-green that Lucy doesn't even have a word to describe it, and his smile is the most gorgeous thing about him. He turns his head to her to see that she's been staring at him, and he smiles, and gives her a little wink. Every time he smiles at her, she can't help but smile back.

:.:

_She remembers when she was just a little girl attending muggle elementary school ("it's the right thing to do, unless you want our daughter to be completely clueless when she actually goes to Hogwarts," her father always said). _

_Little Lucy was sitting by herself in a field of wildflowers and was making herself a crown from them. It was her favourite thing to do and she loved skipping around with flowers in her hair because isn't that what princesses wore? According to Massy Singleton, it's what freaks and losers wore. "Who would be stupid enough to pull dirty weeds from the ground and pile them on their head?" And so Lucy Weasley became the target of Massy's snide comments from the first grade_ _until the very last day of the fifth. She's sure she would've broken by then if it weren't for Lorcan and his overprotective attitude towards the little girl. Since the first day when he watched Lucy with purple flowers in her hair get tripped by Massy with a sneer on her face, he made it his mission to protect her and stand up for her, because even though he was always there for her, Lucy had changed. From innocent, naive and outgoing to quiet, shy and insecure. One day, she told herself that the only explanation for the fact that everyone, it seemed, hated her because she was just plain unlike-able. That same day, spotlight Lucy became wallflower Lucy, and she's been one ever since. _

_Still, Lorcan had always been there for her, he was - and probably always will be - her rock.  
_

__:.:

"So who is this girl that's been holding you heart hostage?" she asks lightly. Though she knows the answer will just hurt her, her curious side had already taken over.

"Oh, she's beautiful." He starts, and her heart sinks. "She's great to be around, and she's the funniest and most sarcastic girl I know. She's a dreamer that loves to swing on swing sets with a crown of daisies adorning her shiny hair. Her eyes are a shade of blue that I've never even seen before, and her laugh is contagious." With each word he says he leans slightly closer to her, until the next thing she knew, their foreheads were touching and their breaths were mingling in the cool spring breeze. "You know what the best thing about her is? Her smile. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and every time I see it, I can't help but think that I'd like to wake up to that smile every morning, and that I'd do anything just to see her smile."

She had never known what other people thought of her before, she always assumed everyone was just like Massy and abhorred her existance just because they could and she was unlike-able, but as their lips met in a soft kiss that made Lucy feel like she was floating, she realized that none of it mattered. It didn't matter what anyone else thought of her, it only mattered that the one person that truly mattered to her made her see just how likeable she was and see herself as the beautiful person everyone else already saw in her.

The kiss ended when both Lucy and Lorcan couldn't contain their smiles any longer.

The next morning, all anyone could talk about was Lucy Weasley, and how she had somehow changed. She still dressed the same, looked the same, and laughed the same way, but the way she carried herself was different. She walked down the hallway and didn't care that everyone was staring at her. Slowly, day by day, she built up her confidence (with the help of one Lorcan Scamander and one million kisses in between) until the day that she stood up for herself when a girl named Massy Singleton tried tripped her as she skipped along with purple wildflowers in her hair and Massy ended up falling over instead.

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Gah, I just love Lucy/Lorcan. Please don't favourite without reviewing first!


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